Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

INHABITANTS OF SUJIATRA. 105all speak freely, at times coming to blows.It is also usual to deliberate fasting, inorder to guard against the violent scenes that might be caused by the abuse ofpalm-wine.Formerly an extensive traffic was carried on in Niassi slaves, whom hundredsof praus came to kidnap round the coasts of the island. Sir Stamford Raffles waseven " censured " by the East India Company for obstructing this trade duringthe British occupation. At present many of the islanders emigrate to takeservice in Malay or European families, and amongst them are nearly alwayschosen the carpenters, masons, and thatchers.The natives of the Mentawey Archipelago are also " savages," differinggreatl)', however, from the other west Sumatran islanders. According to VonRosenberg, who visited them between the years 1847 and 18-j2, they are notMalays at all, but a branch of the East Polynesian race. Their idiom, remarkablefor its softness and abundance of vowels, appears to differ completely from thedialects of Sumatra and neighbouring islands.Like the Polynesians, the Chagalalegats,as they call themselves, delight in waving plumes, foliage, and flowers.They deck their hair with bright corals, and cover the breast with tattoo markingsin the form of shields, like the Tonga and other Pacific peofiles. Certain food isstrictly tabooed for the women, while the profane are warned off from certainm3'sterious recesses of the forest.The Mentawey people do not blacken their teeth like most of the Malaytribes, but file to a point the front teeth. The youth of both sexes join togetherin all gymnastic exercises, but after marriage the women keep discreetly apart.Divorce is unknown and adultery punished with death. Like their neighbours ofthe Pagah group, the Chagalalegats are extremely pacific, never warring amongstthemselves, nor fortifying their villages, which, however, they take care not tobuild on the coast, but always on the bank of some small inland stream. Tilllately their arms were the bow and poisoned arrows. Although much dreadingthe evil spirits, they at times consult them in the depths of the forest, where thereplies are uttered in a harsh, quivering voice.The souls of the dead, also greatlyfeared, are supposed to become demons, and a neighbouring uninhabited island isthe special abode of these departed spirits.Even the little island of Engano, at the southern extremity of the insular chain,has its peculiar race, on insufficient grounds affiliated by some writers to thePapuan stock. These rude islanders were still in the stone age till the middle ofthe present century, when they learnt the use of iron. They went naked, whencethe term Pulo Telanjang, or " Naked Island," applied by the Malay traders totheir little territory. The Kerikjee, as they call themselves, were also unacquaintedwith tobacco and strong drinks, but were, on the other hand, scrupulou.-lyhonest, theft being unknown amongst them.They bury their dead in afishing-net, doubtless to enable them to continue to procure themselves food inthe next world; but the fruit-trees, field, and garden-plot of the departed are laidwaste, being henceforth useless to him.